


Love, Maybe

by thesilenceinbetween



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Drabbles, Explicit Language, F/M, Open on Sunday challenges, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-30
Updated: 2005-08-30
Packaged: 2017-11-07 20:56:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesilenceinbetween/pseuds/thesilenceinbetween
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fourteen drabbles, 1400 words, and two incredibly screwed up individuals pondering each other and what they have together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love, Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer** — Joss owns all; I own nothing and make no profit, monetary or otherwise, from this story.

Their couplings are always the same, it seems. She drops by, rambunctious foreplay occurs, they fuck, and she leaves. It’s the way things always are, and Wesley has become accustomed to this routine.

Until one night, Lilah surprises him by staying in bed with him, contentedly curled up by his side like a cat. He just lays there, stroking her hair, wondering if this is her playing another of her mind-fucky games on him. Wondering if perhaps she’s grown fond of him, the way he has of her.

He suspects he’ll never know. And, quite strangely, he doesn’t really care.

*

It’s amazing, they both think, how much the past five months together have changed them. At first, they’d both been so hard and cold, their jagged edges cutting and tearing relentlessly, continuously fighting for dominance and control.

Then summer had slowly transformed into autumn, revealing their once-sharp edges to be gone, smoothed away by the constant friction, the importance of dominance and control seemingly forgotten. 

For the first time in their lives, they’re content. 

And yet, beneath the contentment, doubt still lingers, telling them that their euphoria won’t – _can’t_ – last. 

After all, one never knows what the future will bring.

*

Lilah snuggled up against Wesley, holding out a bowl of popcorn in offering. “You’re not gonna get scared, now, are you?” she asked teasingly.

Wesley scoffed. “Please, Lilah, I’m not five. I can watch a movie without – good Lord!” He jumped, spilling popcorn everywhere.

“It’s just a corpse, Wes,” Lilah snorted.

Wesley opened his mouth to protest, but instead popped another buttery kernel into his mouth. “You realize how odd this is, right?”

“Y’mean that a video is somehow killing people? Yeah.”

“No, I mean us. Watching some movie together. Like we’re normal people.”

“Oh, that. Uh-huh.”

“Just checking. Popcorn?”

*

“Trick-or-treat!”

Lilah dropped a Tootsie Roll into Cinderella’s plastic jack-o-lantern before slamming the door in the tot’s face. Whoever’d thought it was a good idea to allow tons of snot-nosed little brats to march around demanding candy deserved to be shot. If one more kid knocked on her door, she’d – 

Tap-tap-tap!

Furious, Lilah stormed over to the door and yanked it open, prepared to kill the unsuspecting trick-or-treater, and froze.

On the other side stood Wesley, donned in a ridiculous-looking Peter Pan costume, complete with tights. 

“Trick-or-treat,” he grinned slyly.

Suddenly, Halloween didn’t seem quite that bad to Lilah anymore.

*

It’s times like this, when she lies lazily in his arms, that Wesley thinks life is quite perfect. When they lie together, he can forget what she does and whom she works for, and drift away to the feeling of her delicate fingertips gently tracing patterns onto his chest.

He knows that this cannot last, and that in the morning they will go their separate ways, back to another day of endless work and good vs. evil. But at least for a while they can enjoy the present, their little sanctuary from good and evil. It’s all that they have.

*

Wesley can’t remember ever being this mad before. Lilah hadn’t just played him – she’d broken the fragile bond they’d worked so hard to create. The bedroom was supposed to be their sanctuary, where they could be together without having to worry about work. She’d violated that peace when she let him overhear her “plans” for Cordelia, going after Lorne instead.

No matter how much they try, work will always come in between them. He is good and she is evil. It’s the truth, harsh and real.

He knows things won’t be the same between them again. It never is simple.

*

There are so many things that she wishes she could tell him, but can’t seem to force out. She wants to tell him that she loves him, and that she needs him. She wants to ask him not to leave her alone in the sewers.

But her pride, even with a gaping stomach wound, won’t seem to let her. And she's not even sure he'd believe her, anyway.

So instead she tells him that Connor is trapped inside the building. And once he’s gone, she does the only thing left that she can do - she turns and walks away.

*

Her entire body shakes, despite the warmth left over from the previous night’s fiery rain. She feels nauseous, and is barely able to walk properly. 

Lilah takes a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself, but it doesn’t help. Wesley’s infected her, eased his way into every inch of her being, and now that he’s gone, she’s sick with need and want.

It’s when the tears start to come that she knows she’s finished. Simple illnesses can be cured, but this is no longer a simple illness. 

Wesley’s her addiction, and he will somehow be the end of her.

*

Ever since Lilah had unexpectedly reappeared in his life earlier that day, Wesley had taken to watching the attorney like a hawk. In doing so, he’d noticed that, beneath her bitchy exterior, she’d seemed… different, somehow. 

Broken, perhaps. Maybe vulnerable. It always was hard to tell with Lilah.

In any matter, whatever _this_ is, Wesley decides it’s all due to the Beast and the loss of her “pretty things”. It’s not like there’s another explanation. Not like it could be _him_ who’s broken her so. She hadn’t cared about him. She couldn’t.

At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself.

*

The knife plunges into her neck, and a fresh burst of pain explodes in her neck. She cannot breathe - she's choking on her own blood.

She's on the floor now, precious blood flowing freely from her neck, and she knows she will die. There's so much she wishes she could have done, said. And Wes - he's going to think he was only a fuck to her. Will her death be like a knife through his own neck? Will it finally make him realize that he was her prettiest thing?

She doubts it. If only she could tell him that she –

*

Before she’d come along, he’d been utterly and completely lost. She’d found him and unwittingly rescued him from the depths of solitude, returning to him his confidence in himself and his abilities, allowing him to live again.

She’d saved him. And when she’d begged him, silently but clearly, to repay the favor, help her find her way, he’d left her to bleed to death in the sewers. When she’d shown up at the hotel, still silently pleading for help, he’d refused her once more, leaving her alone in the hotel.

He’d let Angelus kill her. And now she’s lost forever.

*

He needs to get rid of it. It’s constantly haunting him, glaring at him, reminding him of what he’s lost, what he gave up.

He could sell it. There must be thousands of history buffs that would love to have an antique suit-of-armor helmet and be willing to pay him nicely. He can’t bring himself to do it, though. It _had_ been a gift from Lilah, after all, and selling it feels… wrong.

So instead he places it with the rest of her things on the top shelf of his closet – out of sight, but unfortunately not out of mind.

*

The tears, blurring and obscuring her vision, don’t begin to well up until she meets his sorrow-filled gaze. She tries to fight them back, but they keep coming, ready to flow down her cheeks at any moment.

He can’t see her cry, no matter what, so she pulls him into her arms, trying to banish away the tears that threaten to spill onto his shoulder. 

It’s not until he goes rigid in her arms, until the ashes of her contract begin to disappear, erased from time just like the rest of their relationship, that the tears start to fall freely.

*

The sun shines down upon them, bathing them in light. Wesley drapes his arm around her shoulders, fingers absentmindedly stroking the silky material around her neck.

It’s times like this she’s sure she’s going to wake up in Hell and find that the last few days have been a dream. Without Connor, all memories of them should be gone. Erased. Nonexistent. 

But they’re not. They’re still here.

Lilah knows she’s the last person on earth who deserves something like this. She hadn’t even dared to hope for anything so miraculous. But, nonetheless, for the first time in years, she’s grateful.


End file.
